Rediscovering Guitar: The Passion

I started learning piano in 2nd grade with an unweighted 61-key digital piano, and an assortment of self-guided piano books. Putting time into piano allowed me to join the percussion section once I started 6th grade.1 Armed with a reasonable knowledge of music, the free time that childhood offers, and experience learning new skills on my own, I began playing guitar in 7th grade. ...

March 7, 2022 · 5 min · 1042 words · Mark Richard

A Little More Music

Now that I’m working full-time, I’m getting used to spending significantly more time focusing consistently than when I was in school. Back in college, I could break up my work as I saw fit, take rests and roam around, or just slack off a bit any given day. That does not go over particularly well in an actual working environment. ...

October 9, 2018 · 4 min · 771 words · Mark Richard

Abducted: A 24-Hour Musical

This past weekend I had the fantastic experience of playing drumset in a musical put together in only 24 hours. My friend Tim, along with his friend Adam, wrote the entirety of the show. We showed up at Friday on 7pm, with nobody having seen the script or music except the writers. We then performed the musical – lines memorized, music rehearsed, choreography and blocking complete – at 7pm (and 9pm) Saturday evening. I had an extremely good time. The music was engaging and written with some interpretation allowable, as all the members of the pit were experienced in this musical scenario. We had a lot of fun putting things together quickly, and were quite successful in performing our parts within a few hours. The show was broadly a satirical take on the characters from Scooby-Doo. In addition to the normal gang (whose names are never explicitly stated at any point in the show), there is the scapegoat Brian, who is Daphne’s current boyfriend. He is verbally abused throughout the show, with some light slapping. In addition, Scooby-Doo is just a man in a Scooby-Doo outfit (naturally), although an old Hermit we meet at the beginning addresses this fact: ...

August 13, 2018 · 4 min · 832 words · Mark Richard